In the last 20 years, there has been a revolution in our understanding of how blood flow is regulated in many tissues. Whereas it used to be thought that essentially all blood flow control occurred at the arteriole level, it is now recognized that control of capillary blood flow by contractile pericytes plays a key role both in regulating blood flow physiologically and in reducing it in clinically relevant pathological conditions. In this article, we compare and contrast how brain and cardiac pericytes regulate cerebral and coronary blood flow, focusing mainly on the pathological events of cerebral and cardiac ischaemia. The cerebral and coronary capillary beds differ dramatically in morphology, yet in both cases, pericyte-mediated capillary constriction plays a key role in restricting blood flow after ischaemia and possibly in other pathological conditions. We conclude with suggestions for therapeutic approaches to relaxing pericytes, which may prove useful in the long-term for reducing pericyte-induced ischaemia.

中文翻译：

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脑和心脏中的周细胞：功能作用和对缺血和再灌注的反应


在过去的 20 年里，我们对许多组织中血流如何调节的理解发生了一场革命。虽然过去认为基本上所有的血流控制都发生在小动脉水平，但现在人们认识到，收缩周细胞对毛细血管血流的控制在生理调节血流和在临床相关病理条件下减少血流方面都起着关键作用。在本文中，我们比较和对比了脑和心脏周细胞如何调节脑和冠状动脉血流，主要关注脑缺血和心肌缺血的病理事件。脑毛细血管床和冠状动脉毛细血管床在形态上差异很大，但在这两种情况下，周细胞介导的毛细血管收缩在限制缺血后血流方面起着关键作用，并且可能在其他病理条件下起着关键作用。我们最后提出了松弛周细胞的治疗方法建议，从长远来看，这可能有助于减少周细胞诱导的缺血。